hi there. I'm new around here.
I just listened to the reading of the graveyard book and I really love it like all the other books by neil gaiman but a small mistake caught my attention.
has anyone else noticed in chapter 3 "the hounds of hell" that Bod says that he sees Orion the hunter in the nightsky although it's summer and Orion can only be seen in winter (at least in the northern hemisphere in europe, i don't know how it is elsewhere). It's an easy mistake to make if you don't look at the stars regularly when they're out as i do.

It makes no difference for the story if it's orion or cassiopaia (don't know if it's spelled right) that he sees.

just wanted to know if anyone else caught it

moni

Around my parts I can always see Orion's belt! but yeah..

i just looked at http://www.astroviewer.de/inte...ive-sternenkarte.php
you're right. it would just be possible to see it in late summer (starting with the middle of august), to see orion rising over the horizon just before sunrise...
i just assumed that since i never saw it (i'm not usually up this late/ early) it wasn't there...

my bad. sorry

I never knew it went away.... hmmm. That's interesting

i guess, where you're from, you see it in summer as you live so far to the west of me...
there's an english version of the starmap as well.

I live in Central Pennsylvania and I don't see it in summer (unless it shows up just before dawn, I have no idea, it's been a very long time since I stayed up that late. ) I do know that during the end of October at around 10.30pm it's just starting to rise over the South Eastern hills - I gave my son the name Orion for his middle name, it's my favourite constellation.

I'm fairly sure I can still see it in April, but again, it's been a long time since I've stared at the sky.

ETA: er... West shouldn't make any difference, it's North and South that would make a difference.

And I don't really think you can see just Orion's belt - I mean, it rises sort of on it's side and then tilts upright. Are you sure you're not looking at the Big Dipper?

if you're directing the question at me, I looked at an interactive starmap (already posted the link, too lazy to google it again). in which you could specifically look for a certain constellation at a certain time and place. I looked in britain and orion would just about rise in the east at 4: 20 am in the middle of august..
i think it would already be too light then to see the stars but maybe in late august it would work.

bod seeing orion in the sky is therefore possible if you have a broad definition of "high summer".

it really isn't all that important. just wanted to know if anyone else caught it and wondered

No, it was yusef who said he can always see Orion's belt and I just think he must be looking at something else.

I freely admit that I missed the reference and have been too lazy to go find my copy of The Graveyard Book and look it up.

it was mentioned at the very end of the chapter "the hounds of god"

but, of course, Bod would've been up all night, so, if Orion starts coming out in late summer, say, in August, he would've seen it.

i hadn't checked it on a starmap before i posted this...
i've only ever seen orion in late fall or winter..

I just re-read this bit in the book and it's during "high summer" which is August to early September and it was almost midnight when Silas came back and "still not fully dark" - so... going by the still not fully dark at midnight reference, it's gotta be August-ish and that just doesn't make sense, because I don't think Orion is visible around Midnight in August in the Northern Hemisphere.

So, I'm confused now.

Would it matter that the author was in Wisconsin USA and not England?

Well, the book takes place in the UK as far as I remember

As far as I could tell, it did take place in the UK.

I just think it's an odd thing about me that I can suspend my cynicism and disbelief to cheerfully swallow a story about vampires, a boy being raised by ghosts, werewolves, some weird ancient thing, assorted ghoulies and a secret society of killers, but chuck that one little inconsistency in there and that's all I can focus on!

sheesh I'm weird.


Moni - I must admit that the first time I skipped right over it - I must have really been caught up in the story. But now it niggles at me.

quote:

Originally posted by Maeve:
I just think it's an odd thing about me that I can suspend my cynicism and disbelief to cheerfully swallow a story about vampires, a boy being raised by ghosts, werewolves, some weird ancient thing, assorted ghoulies and a secret society of killers, but chuck that one little inconsistency in there and that's all I can focus on!

sheesh I'm weird.

You're not. In a similar way, I'm a bit concerned about Miss Lupescu's cooking, because if all that was meant to be her native food... well, I'm not sure - never really checked - whether all that was really Romanian, it seemed to me more like generic Eastern European as seen by an English person. End of OT.

I was wondering about the Orion, too. I remember seeing it full in the sky at the end of October once, which has been my strongest impresion of it ever, so I wondered if it was possible like in the book... And, well, not fully dark around midnight... I don't know, what if that has to do with the lights of the town? Recently I went out to the garden around that time and I was quite scared by how much the lights outshone the darkness... I was quite sure it used not to be like that when I was younger. Makes me feel like one of the old people complaining about the state of the world today.

Maeve and Moni, et al. -
My guess is that the reader of _The Graveyard Book_ is supposed to notice any and all references to constellations, astronomy, phases of the moon and anything in the sky. If it bothers you that something doesn't seem quite right about it, I imagine that Neil Gaiman is rubbing his hands together with glee - he wants us to dig beneath the surface and look for deeper meanings.

References in this book to the constellation known as Orion would be particularly relevant, if my thinking about the mythology behind Bod and "The Master" is correct. It wouldn't be fair to explain my whole line of thinking, but one clue that may be relevant is that Gwyn Ap Nudd, ruler of the Otherworld, was a hunter, astrologer and warrior.

Thanks for posting this query! It will make me go back and look for similar details!

I didn't link to it, although I meant to, and I suppose I could be misremembering, but I swear Neil twittered about having the wrong constellation and that future books would rectify that. But I don't know why he chose Orion in the first place.

quote:

Originally posted by Maeve:
I just re-read this bit in the book and it's during "high summer" which is August to early September and it was almost midnight when Silas came back and "still not fully dark" - so...

I might be totally wrong, but the impresison I always had was that High Summer (as noticed in use in the UK) referred to late June-July. As I said, it's my impression, because it's when it's hottest over there. It would also tie with it being close ot midnight and not fully dark, because in August it's definitely dark around midnight even in Edinburgh. Maybe a Brit can confirm?
(Not that I know how this affects Orion's visibility at that moment in the book, though.)